Wakefield, center, with ardent supporters, speaks to the media after the Medical Council ruling.
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The vaccine theory also offers an appealingly simple explanation for a devastating and confusing ailment that seems to arrive like a thief in the night. It has been diagnosed with ever greater frequency, and the number of vaccines given in childhood has also grown in the past 20 years, making them an easy target for blame. Experts believe much of the increase in autism-spectrum-disorder diagnoses stems from better detection, less stigma and broader definitions of autism, but this explanation fails to satisfy many afflicted families.
Another reason that Wakefield's spurious conclusions had so much staying power was that his study focused on gastrointestinal symptoms in children with autism. Many autistic children have chronic constipation, diarrhea, stomach pain and feeding issues--problems that remain poorly understood. Says autism advocate and blogger Katie Wright, a Wakefield loyalist: "He was the first doctor to take this concern seriously and research why so many autistic children develop severe GI disease."
Wakefield, who is associated with the Thoughtful House Center for Children, an autism center in Austin, Texas, could not be reached for comment. He maintains a devoted circle of supporters, several of whom appeared with him on Jan. 28 in London for the General Medical Council ruling. The formal repudiation of his 1998 paper may only reinforce their belief that there's a conspiracy on the part of the medical establishment to suppress his work.
It's hard to say how many families cling to the belief that vaccines cause autism, but they are likely a minority. Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the infectious-diseases division at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and author of Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, says he has received hundreds of grateful letters from parents of autistic children thanking him for debunking the autism-vaccine connection. But he has also received death threats, as recently as a month ago. "It's easy to scare people," says Offit. "But it's extremely hard to unscare them."